Starter's Guide to the Lolcow Wiki -

[Null]

For the sake of brevity I will cover as many points in as few words as possible. Wiki editing should be fun. If it's not, I've made things too complicated.

Add me on skype: cwcvilletechsupport

The best way to handle this is to rewrite one page a day, at least. Take about an hour or so, find a Gamerfood page, or fill in an info gap. Upload missing screenshots, and correct file names so they aren't dumpster garbage.

I want to make an article
Use these conventions for the title.
Full Name
Full Name and Concept/Item
Full Name's Noun

Use correct pluralization.
Tyce Andrews's Catana

Don't use short hand.
Jace and Marijuana

If you use shorthand, redirect it.
Jace and Marijuana
#REDIRECT [[Jace Connors and Marijuana]]


Use citations.
Use our <ref/> system to record your sources.
Use archive.md to record third party websites that people have content control over.
Take screenshots and upload them to our webite.
Use coherent screenshots.


I want to improve an existing article
Use our series template.
{{ps-jace}}
Consult the template documentation.
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Template:Ps-jace

Other useful templates:
http://kiwifarms.net/threads/template-reference-list.6096/


I want to add video to my page
Video works with the HTML5video thing that isn't that great. I have to manually upload videos.

Video index:
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/extensions/HTML5video/videos/pkd/

Example of video usage:
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Cwciki_forums_(Jace_Video)


I want to add a tweet to my page
I have custom built a pretty OK twitter caching plugin. Tweets recorded by my system never get deleted.

Read more:
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Help:Twitter

To manually trigger a cache (before something gets deleted):
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Meta:TwitterFollower


I want to add an Infoboxes
The infoboxes on Gamerfood's wiki are fucking abysmal. I've tried to replace them but they're very hard to do.

This article has a new infobox.
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Jace_Connors

I do not currently have meta structure setup to handle categorizing trolls.

I want to categorize a page.
Please do not add categories using the [[Category:]] syntax directly to the page. Any categories should be added via templates somehow. Please let me know what you're trying to accomplish. Something may already exist or may be required for development.

I want to use tweets / twitter
The first thing I did when I added our WikiMedia installation was hand-code a twitter caching service. Tweets that are stored cannot be removed from our server by being deleted on Twitter.

Additional information:
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Help:Twitter
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Meta:TwitterFollower
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Template:Tweet

 

[LOLlolcow]

I have a question about citations.
Should I use archive.md for Kiwi Farms posts that users can delete? More specifically, this archive of TJChurch's blog that a user posted. The original blog is obviously private now.

 

[Null]

Ideally, you would copy+paste all that stuff over to its own page and then cite the story there.

 

[LOLlolcow]

Ideally, you would copy+paste all that stuff over to its own page and then cite the story there.

That makes sense. Thanks Null.

 

[Null]

I think I made a mistake.

The convention Wikipedia uses are, for example:
Noun of Name
Name's Posession

Not "Name and Noun" like Sonichu.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

Adolf Hitler's rise to power
Political views of Adolf Hitler
Economy of Nazi Germany

Would anyone object to formalizing this as the standard?

 

[LOLlolcow]

Sounds good to me.

 

[Null]

I've updated OP with more information on twitter.

The first thing I did when I added our WikiMedia installation was hand-code a twitter caching service. Tweets that are stored cannot be removed from our server by being deleted on Twitter.

Additional information:
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Help:Twitter
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Meta:TwitterFollower
http://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Template:Tweet

Use this:
twitter.com/KiwiNull/status/536692628415606784
{{tweet|536692628415606784|:^)}}

The 3rd section (:^)) is the back-up text. If for any reason the tweet is destroyed or unrenderable, it will display that quote. It's optional, but a good idea.

Additionally, you may now also use the {{tweet}} as a reference. If you can't bluntly include the tweet inside the article, feel free to use <ref>{{tweet|id|text}}</ref>. This will render the same HTML in the references, but it'll look like this.

 

[norrington]

May be a dumb question, but is there any page on the wiki (or here on the forum) that lists articles in high demand?
Like, nonexistent articles that have been linked to or otherwise mentioned in a lot of other places on the wiki,

(It was a dumb question, I found the page on the wiki)

articles that are notably absent, etc. Maybe a thread asking the members to request articles and whatnot, that could get people more involved if there's no fear that they'll be expected to actually write the article they want to see.

Might be a good idea for getting people more involved in contributing to and editing the wiki? It might be tough to gauge relevance of a potential article, if would-be authors are only familiar with one sub-forum, or aren't up to date on which cows/subjects are the most article-worthy or relevant, or if they just don't know where to start at all.

 

[BILLY MAYS]

I started editing on the wiki a few days back, and I have one question: is there anything resembling Sandbox for editors? I'd like to know especially since I usually write in small pieces, rather than making one large edit, and I don't like cluttering up the changes history, if you know what I mean.

 

[Null]

I started editing on the wiki a few days back, and I have one question: is there anything resembling Sandbox for editors? I'd like to know especially since I usually write in small pieces, rather than making one large edit, and I don't like cluttering up the changes history, if you know what I mean.

There are two conventions for this.

1. Edit this page, a la Wikipedia. https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/Meta:Sandbox
2. Add a subpage to your user page. https://lolcow.wiki/wiki/User:Null/Twitter

 

[fatherjen]

So the wiki is kind of like wikiHow except it has articles about LolCows?

 

[jenffer a jay]

So the wiki is kind of like wikiHow except it has articles about LolCows?

yes

 

[fatherjen]

Yayayayayayay! I'm so glad! this is gonna be fun

 

[Apocalypso]

Great info. Late to say this @Null but thanks a bunch for this putting this up.